Meta-modeling and standardization issues for Asian Languages lexical resources

This paper describes the experiments we are currently conducing at Academia Sinica for extending a proposed international standard for lexical framework (Lexical Markup Framework). Although this framework is very rich and powerful, it originally has been developed for European languages. Hence some important extensions are needed to ensure the robustness of this framework to cope with Asian languages. The issues addressed include: (i) the need for derivational morphology, (ii) the interface between morphology, syntax and semantics with the problem of classifiers, and (iii) representational issues with the richness of the writing systems in Asian languages. In this paper we propose prospective solutions for these issues and illustrate them through examples from Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese, Cantonese, Malay and Bangla.